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4. The 40-day Naked & Afraid XL challenge ends, with piranhas, caiman and a long, hot walk (Discovery)
Anyone who says they started watching this reality show for the “afraid” part is lying. But it’s true that the titillation factor on Discovery’s extreme survival challenge does fade fast, leaving only the fascination of seeing bare-assed folks try to figure out how to eat, and avoid being eaten, in the middle of nowhere. The spin-off XL series was a little disappointing, however, because while it featured multiple teams of past survivors attempting a 40-day expedition instead of a mere 21, the notion of stretching a single mission across eight episodes rather than their usual taut one-and-done was a bad call.
An exciting finale picked up a lot of the slack though, as the eight remaining challengers from the original 12 broke into a groups for a grueling overnight journey to their extraction point. They dealt with intense heat, nibbling piranhas, a leaping caiman (which they killed and grilled), and the lingering hurt feelings that split them into two traveling parties in the first place. As tedious as the interpersonal drama eventually became, it lead to some fascinating contrasts in N&A strategy, as each of these sets of series veterans held to their own beliefs about how best to live (to conserve energy or to hunt? … to work as a collective or to go it alone?) while sneering at everyone else. Much more than the bare skin, it’s these tests of will and clashing values that the series is really selling.
